Qualification Options
We currently offer the following City & Guilds qualification:
- Level 3 Diploma for the Children and Young People's Workforce: Social Care Pathway (England) 4227-04
The Level 3 diploma is aimed at those people already working in the Children and Young People sector. For example, you may be working as a childminder, day care supervisor, SureStart worker, community nursery nurse or as a learning mentor. You may or may not have some supervisory responsibilities. You want to be in sole charge of children, for example managing a room in a nursery.
We can offer the following pathway:
- Social Care
This is a competency-based qualification for learners who work or volunteer in children’s services and is designed to be assessed in the place of work, as part of their normal work role. The qualification enables learners to demonstrate and develop the skills and knowledge required within their role and be formally accredited for them.
The qualification consists of mandatory units, covering core knowledge and skills competencies, plus a number of optional specialism units, which can be combined in flexible ways to reflect the real working context of each learner and their work setting.
Age Group – 18 or older
This qualification is the ideal choice for learners wanting to work in a number of roles:
Children’s Social Care pathway: practitioners in residential care, foster carers, families and children’s workers, youth worker, community care officer.
Learners must gain a minimum of 65 credits to achieve the Level 3 Diploma for the Children and Young People’s Workforce. To do this they must achieve 27 credits from the mandatory Group A of units, covering the following topics:
• Promote communication in health, social care or children’s and young people’s settings
• Engage in personal development in health, social care or children’s and young people’s settings
• Promote equality and inclusion in health, social care or children’s and young people’s settings
• Principles for implementing duty of care in health, social care or children’s and young people’s settings
• Understand child and young person development
• Promote child and young person development
• Understand how to safeguard the wellbeing of children and young people
• Support children and young people’s health and safety
• Develop positive relationships with children, young people and others involved in their care
• Working together for the benefit of children and young people
• Understand how to support positive outcomes for children and young people
• Assessment and planning with children and young people
• Promote the well-being and resilience of children and young people
• Professional practice in children and young people’s social care
Learners will then need to achieve a minimum of 39 credits, selecting the optional units needed to achieve their preferred pathway.
Group D - Social Care pathway - must achieve 13 credits.
The remaining credits must be achieved from Group F.
Main qualification guidance -
Optional units guidance:
All learners vary on the timescale to complete their qualification.
When you register, you will be given a specified target date in which to achieve your qualification, you can complete your qualification sooner than the target date if you are able to submit work regularly and at a good pace. Specific target dates can be discussed and agreed with your Assessor.
Total Qualification Time (TQT) is 650 hrs, depending on the pathway being undertaken, which is based on the average amount of time taken to achieve these qualifications, over an average completion period of 18-24 months.
Complete qualification (including Registration, Learner Pack, Assessment and Certification)Â prices start from:
• Level 3 Diploma for the Children and Young People's Workforce: Social Care Pathway - £2,892.
These prices are reduced significantly for learners and organisations with their own in-house assessor support.
Registration only prices start from:
• Level 3 Diploma for the Children and Young People's Workforce: Social Care Pathway – £752.
*ARC members benefit from reduced costs
WDF is not available for Childcare qualifications.
To register for any of these qualifications, you need to complete the necessary registration forms. This will prompt support for you to consider all the aspects involved in undertaking the qualification and ensure the right one is selected for you. You will also need to seek permission from your organisation to collect evidence in the workplace.
To find out more about registering please click here ‘How to Register’.
All ARC learner documentation is included in our learner portfolios, these can also be accessed via our ‘’Documentation, Guidance & Policies’ section in word and .pdf format.
Awarding Organisation guidance is available via the same page.